World Teachers' Day 2017: Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers

To deliver quality education for everyone, we need trained teachers: they are not only at the heart of learning, but also the foundation of strong, safe, and healthy societies. Enabling teachers to fulfil their potential results in enabling young people and adults to fulfil their potential, yet worldwide teachers are facing challenges to their professionalism, their freedom to teach using the methods they feel appropriate, and their freedom to be actively involved in the development of curricula.

5th October is World Teachers' Day, and in recognition of these major challenges, in 2017 the theme of the day is Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers.

Education has received much attention in recent weeks and months, particularly in the run-up to and during the UN General Assembly. On 26 September, the World Bank also published its first-ever education-focused World Development Report. However, despite this attention, it is clear that insufficient focus is being placed on ways to sustainably finance quality education - and fundamentally, that means increasing the overall size of education budgets, and delivering sufficient and reliable funding to pay for trained teachers. Teachers cannot be empowered without the means to pay for quality training, fair wages, and professional development.

For World Teachers' Day 2017, GCE member Education International has signed a joint statement along with UNESCO, the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and UNDP Fred van Leeuwen. This is available in the following languages: